The present invention relates generally to seats for automobiles, and more particularly to latching arrangements for controlling longitudinal movement of such seats.
Dual locking arrangements for fixing the relative movement between sliding seat tracks are well known in the prior art. Exemplary of such arrangements is that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,961,559. These arrangements attempt in various ways to overcome problems associated with misalignment between inboard and outboard sliding tracks of the seat that is the result of the stack-up of manufacturing tolerances. The disclosed seat structure and others suffer from disadvantages that make their use less than optimal. Chief among these disadvantages is the dependence upon compensating longitudinal travel of the laterally spaced seat tracks to effect locking engagement on both sides. The prior art seats also suffer from the disadvantage that when misalignment results in one latching member effecting a lock before the other, the sequence is random, making it difficult to optimize the design of the components associated with restraining seat longitudinal movement. Decreasing the sensitivity to misalignments in longitudinal positioning in the seat tracks is accordingly a goal of such designs. The seat design of the mentioned patent suffers from the further disadvantage that its locking action is dependent upon the indirect action of two independently pivotally mounted members.